Is Venezuela paying the price for adopting gun control? The shocking nature of Venezuela’s economic collapse has been covered ad nauseam. However, one aspect of the Venezuelan crisis that does not receive much coverage is the country’s gun control regime. Fox News recently published an excellent article highlighting Venezuelan citizens’ regret over the gun control policies the Venezuelan government has implemented since 2012. Naturally, this regret is warranted. The Venezuelan government is among the most tyrannical in the world, with a proven track record of violating basic civil liberties such as free speech, debasing its national currency, confiscating private property,...

Officials at the New York State Catholic Conference are calling the Reproductive Health Act “worse than we thought it would be.” “It foresees a time in New York where it’s a crime to be pro-life,” said Kathleen Gallagher, director of pro-life activities and the Catholic Action Network for the conference, which is the public policy arm of the state’s Catholic bishops. The measure, introduced in the Legislature the week of January 7, will expand access to abortion in the state, despite being promoted as simply codifying Roe v Wade. It not only increases access to abortion across the board, including...

Can you imagine how scary it would be to live in a world where your livelihood depended on having the ‘correct’ politics? It’s the sort of thing you might expect of totalitarian regimes – Baathist Iraq under Saddam Hussain; everywhere that has ever tried communism; increasingly, Xi’s panopticon China – but definitely not of any liberal democracy in the 21st century. That dystopian future, though, may be much closer than you think. I only properly appreciated this recently when the podcast I’ve been doing for the last few years was mysteriously dropped by my regular employer, forcing me to seek...

Social media posts from the University of Illinois campus police are encouraging students to report “acts of intolerance” to the school’s Bias Assessment and Response Team. At least one officer for the University of Illinois is a member of the school's bias response team. This certainly conflates physical safety with being uncomfortable around non-politically correct individuals. So what is bias, according to the Bias. Assessment and Response Team? They define it as “actions or expressions that are motivated, at least in part, by prejudice against or hostility toward a person (or group) because of that person’s (or group’s) actual or...

Senate Democrats on Thursday began a “blockade” of all legislation after Senate Republicans refused to consider two House-passed bills that would fund partially shut down government agencies without money for a border wall. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on Thursday morning blocked the two bills that were introduced by the two Democratic senators from Maryland, where thousands of federal government workers reside. Democrats made it clear afterward that they wouldn't agree to take up any bills other than those to reopen the government. “It’s my commitment to my federal workers and our country that the first order of business...

Liberals are all about freedom…their freedom to tell us Normal Americans what to think, how to feel, and what to do. And the highest form of liberalism is the ban, a bar to an activity, institution, or attitude that they wish to suppress either to enhance their own power or just for the sheer joy of telling people like us – who they hate – what to do. Often, it’s both.The following ten targets for prohibition may seem wacky now, but give the left time. “Really?” you might ask. But then, a decade ago everyone knew which bathroom to use,...

Colorado cake artist Jack Phillips, owner of the Masterpiece Cakeshop (Screenshot) (CNSNews.com) – A federal district court ruled Friday that Colorado cannot block an attempt by Colorado cake artist Jack Phillips to sue the state over its “hostility” towards him and his Christian beliefs. Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) represents Phillips, owner of the Masterpiece Cakeshop, in the lawsuit. As CNSNews.com previously reported , the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, in June 2018, saying the commission “violated the Free Exercise Clause” by requiring Phillips to go against his religious beliefs about gay marriage...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is ready to tax the rich to make her Green New Deal a reality. “People are going to have to start paying their fair share in taxes,” the recently elected New York Democrat told TV show “60 Minutes” in an interview set to air Sunday. Speaking of prior decades’ taxation rates in the country, Ocasio-Cortez added, “Once you get to the tippy tops, on your 10 millionth dollar, sometimes you see tax rates as high as 60 or 70 percent.” It shouldn’t be a surprise that the avowed “democratic socialist” went with the predictable “tax the rich”...

Xi has issued public remarks on several occasions this week – first to herald in the new year, then to issue threats to Taiwan to surrender to Chinese rule or expect military action. In that speech, Xi stated, “we make no promise to abandon the use of force, and retain the option of taking all necessary measures,” he also said, according to the Times. “Reunification is a historical trend and it is the right path. Taiwan independence is an adverse current of history and is a dead end,” Xi said, adding a subtle note to the United States that “foreign...

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has adopted a new rule that allows the agency to collect social-media data from those who cross the border. The agency claims the exemption from Privacy Act provisions is necessary because it needs “to identity and understand relationships between individuals, entities, threats and events, and to monitor patterns of activity over extended periods of time that may be indicative of criminal, terrorist, or other threat.” A number of privacy groups and interests had opposed the expansion of the exemptions to the privacy law, but the agency in a filing in the Federal Register explained that...

Bill LuMaye: Tell me a little bit about President Bush and what he signed in regards to Agenda 21 and the UN. Greg Brannon: He signed the Rio Summit in 1992 that put all the CO2 climate control as law de facto. He needed the Senate to pass it. This is important. Treaties must be passed by US Senate. Okay? What they do is they change it to agreements or what since President- Bill LuMaye: Why did they change it to agreements? Greg Brannon: Because you don’t need the Senate to pass it. -------------------- Greg Brannon: “It has long been...

The climate crisis industry claims 24/7/365 that fossil fuel emissions are causing unprecedented temperature, climate and weather changes that pose existential threats to human civilization and our planet. The only solution, Climate Crisis, Inc. insists, is to eliminate the oil, coal and natural gas that provide 80% of the energy that makes US and global, cpossible.Â Failing that, CCI demands steadily increasing taxes on carbon-based fuels and carbon dioxide emissions.Â However, as Franceâ€™s Yellow Vest protests and the latest climate confab in Poland demonstrated, the world does not accept CCIâ€™s assertions. Countries worldwide are expanding their fossil fuel use, and families are...

Is gun confiscation coming to Congress? The 2018 midterm elections produced a split Congress with Democrats gaining control of the House and Republicans gaining seats in the Senate. The chattering DC classes are already speculating about the Democrat’s plans to subpoena Trump’s tax records and Senate Republicans’ moves to consolidate their hold of the federal judiciary. But amid the DC gossip, a new threat is being overlooked—red flag gun confiscation orders. The Guardian detailed House Democrats’ desire to pass gun control legislation in the upcoming Congress: “Ted Deutch, a Democratic congressman from Florida who represents Parkland, where a February school...

Nicaraguan authorities have raided the offices of a critical television station and shut it down, a week after raiding the offices of non-governmental groups and a newspaper. Lucia Pineda, press director for the 100% Noticias station, sent WhatsApp messages to other journalists saying that station director Miguel Mora was detained during the Friday night raid. Backers of President Daniel Ortega had filed criminal complaints accusing Mora of generating hate and during a wave of anti-government protests that broke out in April. Pineda also said police were taking away control equipment from the station, which went off the air. Other journalists...

Here’s how it works. Senators don’t need unanimous consent to bring up a bill. The lack of unanimous consent or 60 votes doesn’t table a bill. It’s just that opposing senators in the minority can request to be recognized and continuously hold the floor. In recent years, majority parties have never made the minority do that. Sometimes it makes sense to pre-emptively achieve an agreement because the majority just can’t afford to chew up endless days on debate of a single issue. But sometimes there are issues worth fighting for. Either way, this is the end of the line for...

In 2012, Venezuela’s dictator-for-life President Hugo Chavez had his rubber stamp legislature pass the Control of Arms, Munitions and Disarmament Law. The public generally supported it at the time. The law stripped law-abiding Venezuelans of every firearm and round of ammunition they could legally own. As the country and its citizens have increasingly benefitted from the wonders of Bolivarian socialism, it appears that the public now regrets their support for total civilian disarmament. “Guns would have served as a vital pillar to remaining a free people, or at least able to put up a fight,” Javier Vanegas, 28, a Venezuelan...

When the Democrats take over the U.S. House of Representatives in three weeks, their first order of business is expected to be a wide-ranging bill about political corruption, voter disenfranchisement and cleaning up campaign finance. An outline of the bill, titled H.R. 1, shows it would require presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns, which Trump has refused to do despite decades of precedent. The bill calls for automatic, early and online national voter registration, as well as an end to partisan gerrymandering of House voting districts, the practice of changing electoral district boundaries to favor a party. Members of...

Federal prosecutors Friday rejected former national security adviser Michael Flynn's suggestion that he should have been warned of the consequences of lying to the FBI, telling a judge that Flynn's false statements were "voluntary and intentional." In a memo to the court, prosecutors from special counsel Robert Mueller's office said there was no basis for Flynn's implication that he was coerced into lying when he spoke to the FBI on Jan. 24, 2017. "The interview was voluntary, and lacked any indicia of coercion," the memo says. Flynn was "relaxed and jocular" during the interview session, it adds. Prosecutors said in...

CARACAS - Venezuela’s El Nacional newspaper, which has been heavily critical of the ruling Socialist Party, on Friday published its last print edition after struggling for years under government pressure and a collapsing economy. The paper, which is transitioning to a web format, has found it increasingly difficult to obtain newsprint due to exchange controls that make imports nearly impossible, and has potentially massive payments in a defamation lawsuit brought by Socialist Party No. 2 Diosdado Cabello. “I want to think that this is a pause,” said the editor-in-chief of the newspaper, Patricia Spadaro, at a press conference in the...

MANAGUA - Nicaraguan police raided the offices of a prominent journalist often critical of President Daniel Ortega, the latest sign of a broad crackdown on civil society and independent media organizations. Carlos Fernando Chamorro, the son of former president Violeta Chamorro, runs the digital newspaper Confidencial and hosts television news programs. He blamed the Thursday night raid and seizure of equipment on increasingly authoritarian efforts to purge the country of domestic dissent. “This was an absurd attack on free expression,” the award-winning Chamorro told Reuters on Friday.